Mary Malmros wrote in message

Oh, please... Don't expect me to do a full google on three or more
topics, just to come and read a newsgroup. Personally I don't give a
**** about Tim, Burnt, and Mike... or your precious bandwidth for that
matter. Fact is, if you don't want to get into the conversation, stay
the f*** out of it. Don't start another OT thread to trash those that
are genuinely interested. Afterall, how many questions that are
considered on topic today on this list have been addressed in depth
before. So all the old guard should just post links to past posts or
tell everyone that asks a question to go back and do the research. We
need to take this ng back in make it only for trip reports, and I
don't mean everyday reports, must be from exotic places and never
mention the same place twice, afterall, it is all in the archives. I
mean, if I put spondoms into google I might only have 5-600 posts to
go through to get the answer to my question, or I might not find it at
all. Really, if we go by your standard, we should all just stop
posting and search the archives. Hey, another good idea is if we all
go back to the old way before the internet and pay folks to spit out
info a spoonfull at a time. After a few hundred dollars, years of
expensive lessons, hundreds of hours of testing us newbies might be
able to learn to paddle across the pool.

You've identified it, Scotty...the ubiquitous slippery slope.
Heaven forfend that anyone, anywhere, should ask anyone to do a
little homework and/or stick to the topic: it will have such a
chilling effect on free expression that by the time the five o'clock
news rolls around, we'll all be reduced to grunting and pointing.

The death of free speech, film at 11...

There are some things where research is good. I have been doing
research for almost two years working on my own personal cruiser and I
could not design it without that research. But some things are better
covered by just simply asking folks who have done something in the
past or have specific ansewers to questions ready available... If I
want info on kevlar or carbon fiber paddles, tensil strengh,
manufacturing process, available colors, shipping costs, etc, I can to
do research... of course it will be distributors and manufacturers I
would be counting on for all of my information. I could spend a week
and still not know if it will be the paddle for me. If I only want to
know if others who use them like them, I can come to a news group,
with one simple question and get a lot of answers from folks who have
actually bought them. Sorry to invade your little camp with my
questions and sarcasm, I will again go back to building and paddling.
Scotty